“...advance into the
hill country of the Amorites; go to all the neighboring peoples in the
Arabah, in the mountains, in the western foothills, in the Negev and along the
coast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon,
as far as the great river, the Euphrates.
See, I have given you this land. Go in and take possession of the
land the Lord swore He would give to your fathers—to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob—and to their descendants after them.’” (Deut. 1:6–8)
Shalom Aadel,
According to Palestinian propaganda, the Jewish
People invaded Palestine,
and ethnically cleansed the land of its original inhabitants. So
today, in various media, Israel
is represented as an occupying force.
Many would like to deny the Jewish People their right to
live in their Biblical homeland, even though the historical record is clear
that although a great number of the Jewish People were enslaved and sent into
exile when the Jewish Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 68, a
remnant of the Jewish People have since lived in the Holy Land.
Bewildering and contradictory arguments have left many
Christians wondering, “Does the Land of Israel belong to the Jews or the
Palestinians?”
As bewildering and
complex as it may seem, there is a clear answer.
The Bible tells us that the Land
of Israel and its boundaries arise from a covenant that God made with Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob and their descendants—the Jewish People.
In that Abrahamic Covenant, God describes the land that was
occupied by ten people groups and that geographically extended from the
“Wadi of Egypt” to the Euphrates as the inheritance of the Jewish
People.
“On that day the Lord made a
covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land,
from the Wadi of Egypt to
the great river, the Euphrates—the
land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,
Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.’” (Genesis 15:18–
21, see also Deuteronomy 1:6–8 above, Exodus 32:13 and 33:1)
On the heels of the Holocaust and a UN resolution—on May 14,
1948, David Ben-Gurion who later became the first Prime Minister of Israel
proclaimed “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”
Today, this official use of the term Eretz-Israel
(literally, Land
of Israel) is a
reference to the covenant that the God of Israel made with Abraham and the
descendants of Isaac and Jacob.
It also underscores the fact that the new Jewish State was established
on only a portion of the land which God promised the Jewish People,
according to the expansive borders mentioned in Deuteronomy 1: 6–8, Genesis 15:
18–21, Exodus 23:31.
The Origin of the Term “Palestine”
“I will establish your
borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the
Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live
in the land, and you will drive them out before you.” (Exodus 23:31)
Under the British Mandate after World War I, the British
controlled an area of the Ottoman Empire that was divided into two sections—the
land west of the Jordan and the land east of the Jordan (Transjordan). The
British called the land west of the Jordan River “Palestine.”
In fact, Jews who were born during the Mandate have birth
certificates stating that they were born in “Palestine.” Historically speaking, the
term “Palestinian” applied to anyone living in the area, including Jewish
people.
The historic reference to the term “Palestine” goes back as far as Herodotus, the
5th century BC Greek scholar who mentioned in The Histories a
“district of Syria, called Palaistine.” The land of the Phylistiim is also mentioned in the Septuagint,
the second century BC Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
Phylistiim means Philistia, the southwest portion of Israel peopled
by the Philistines.
Although the ancient Philistines were neither Semites nor
Arabs, but Indo-Europeans, the modern usage of the terms “Palestine”
and “Palestinian” is generally linked with these Biblical names of Philistia and Philistine.
The term Palestine only came into use to identify the whole of Israel after AD
135 when the Roman Emperor Hadrian defeated the Jewish zealots
in their second revolt (Bar Kokhba Revolt).
Hadrian imposed this term to humiliate the Jewish
People by naming the Land after Israel’s
enemy and to negate any connection between the
Jewish People and their Promised Land.
Phylistiim means Philistia, the southwest portion of Israel peopled
by the Philistines.
Although the ancient Philistines were neither Semites nor
Arabs, but Indo-Europeans, the modern usage of the terms “Palestine”
and “Palestinian” is generally linked with these Biblical names of Philistia and Philistine.
The term Palestine only came into use to identify the whole of Israel after AD
135 when the Roman Emperor Hadrian defeated the Jewish zealots
in their second revolt (Bar Kokhba Revolt).
Hadrian imposed this term to humiliate the Jewish
People by naming the Land after Israel’s
enemy and to negate any connection between the
Jewish People and their Promised Land.
Sadly, this led to the whole land being called Palestine even though the name was originally associated
with only the small area of Philistia within the land
of Canaan, which came to be Israel.
Political Battle over Judea, Samaria
and the West Bank in the State of Israel
“‘For I will take you out of the
nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your
own land.” (Ezekiel 36:24)
Following the establishment of the State of Israel, the
Israeli government continued to use the term Eretz Israel
to maintain the historic link with God’s promises
to His Chosen People Israel.
In 1951 and 1952, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion twice
highlighted that the Jewish state was created “in a
part of our small country” and “in only a
portion of the Land of Israel” in official state documents (State of
Israel, Government Yearbook, 5712, 5713).
In 1955, he emphasized that “The
creation of the new State by no means derogates from the scope of historic
Eretz Israel.
(State of Israel,
Government Yearbook, 5716)”
From the beginnings of the state, Herut
(Freedom), Israel’s
major right-wing party, had been the political party that gave the greatest
support to land policies linked to the Biblical promises.
The Herut party was founded by Menachem Begin as a successor
to the Irgun, a militant paramilitary group that functioned in Mandate
Palestine.
Later, Herut was joined by Gush
Emunim (Bloc [of the] faithful), a messianic political movement
committed to the establishment of settlements in the so-called West Bank
(Biblical Judea and Samaria).
Both parties firmly supported the belief that the land
acquired by Israel during
the Six Day War in 1967 is part of Eretz Israel, and
therefore belongs to the Jewish people.
They claimed that for
ideological and religious reasons, Judea and Samaria
are rightly a part of Israel,
and should therefore be annexed permanently to the State.
Today, the Gush Emunim party no longer officially exists,
and Herut has merged with the center-right Likud party. Furthermore,
there is a wonderful diversity of opinion that is freely expressed in the
political sphere.
While former left leaning Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni
always contended that such territory must be relinquished in exchange for peace
with the Palestinians, the ruling Likud supports the existence of Jewish
settlements in Judea and Samaria since they consider that territory to
be part of the historical-biblical land of Israel.
Palestinians Make
Unreasonable Demands
“I also established my covenant
with them to give them the land
of Canaan, where they
resided as foreigners.” (Exodus 6:4)
Meanwhile the so-called “peace process” seems to
have come to a standstill as the Palestinians continue to make demands
that are unacceptable to Israel, requiring that such demands be accepted prior
to their return to the “peace” table.
Those demands include the following: (1) accepting
the “pre-1967 borders” as a foundation for a two-state solution, and
(2) freezing construction of Jewish homes in East
Jerusalem and the settlements.
"We must not be trapped by an illogical and
unreasonable demand," Israel’s
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other
congressional leaders during a recent trip to Washington. "It could put the
peace negotiations on hold for another year. (Haaretz)"
The Arab world continues to demand the return to Israel of what
they claim to be 1948’s "Palestinian refugees,” who are now estimated to
be in the millions and growing daily.
However, the Arab world
completely disregards how they expelled in 1948 approximately one million Jews
living in Arab lands, and the
accompanying loss of possessions and property—all of which have never been
considered for compensation.
At the same time the leaders of the Hamas party that rules
the Gaza Strip continue to call for the destruction of Israel and the
death of all Jews.
The only independent country that has ever existed
west of the Jordan River is Israel,
and Scripture calls Eretz Israel
(the Land of Israel) an everlasting possession:
“I will establish my covenant as
an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for
the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after
you. The whole land
of Canaan, where you are
now an alien, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your
descendants after you; and I will be their God.” (Genesis
17: 7 – 8)
Arabs assert that they are the descendants of
Abraham through Ishmael, and therefore entitled to the covenant land of Israel,
but this is certainly not the case.
Not all Arabs are descendants of Ishmael. Not
all Palestinians are descendants of Ishmael.
Furthermore, even if they were, according to Scripture, Ishmael and Abraham's other sons were not the heirs of
the covenant; Isaac and his descendants were the heirs.
“...your wife Sarah will bear
you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with
him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. And
as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make
him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father
of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation. But my
covenant I will establish with Isaac.” (Genesis
17:19 – 21)
"Abraham left everything he
owned to Isaac. But while he was still living, he gave gifts to the sons
of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of
the east." (Genesis 25:5 – 6)
God gave Ishmael separate promises, and he was sent to away
from his brother Isaac so they would not share the same land (see
Genesis 16:12; Genesis 25:12 –18).
Today, in fulfillment of Bible prophecy there are almost six
million Jewish people living in the Land
of Israel!
This is such a wonderful proof that the Word of God
and His promises are True and Active, and being fulfilled even today, despite intense
opposition.
And very soon, we will see the Return of Yeshua the Messiah
to Jerusalem.
He will come to His Chosen People Israel, and reveal Himself to the whole
world.
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